


Ship of the Line: To Our Own

by Jacob_M_Bosch



Series: Ship of the Line: To Our Own [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacob_M_Bosch/pseuds/Jacob_M_Bosch
Summary: A very loose response to Zaion's the Ship of the Line challenge on Twisting The Hellmouth. On the night of Halloween a pitiless and unstoppable force overtakes Sunnydale. It’s up to Buffy Summers and her friends to stop the unstoppable: The Borg.
Series: Ship of the Line: To Our Own [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029417
Kudos: 10





	1. Tentacle R**ing Creeps!

Angel tried to ignore how fiercely Buffy struggled to pry her wrist from his grip, as well as her endless cries for help. He also took great care to pull her forward as gently as he could, even though it caused them to lag behind Giles and the Chase girl. The four of them were following Willow to the shop where the possessed Sunnydale residents bought their cursed costumes. 

Buffy had bought and worn one of said costumes to impress Angel. A dress that turned her from a powerhouse into a screechy, haughty disagreeable young woman. Worst still, the cumbersome thing kept tripping her up whenever Angel tried to have her move faster than a light jog.

“Release me, you vile creature!” Buffy screamed.

Angel winced. Buffy wasn’t herself, but hearing her say those words struck a very dark cord in him. He’d grown accustomed to Buffy treating him like a human, but there was a not so deeply hidden part of him that feared one day she would stop.

“Am I the only one freaked we haven’t seen anybody around?” the Chase girl asked.

Angel was “freaked” as the Chase girl put it. When he first went looking for Buffy it was utter chaos all over town. The possessed ran wild, attacking indiscriminately—even each other. The snarls, growls, and screaming that filled Sunnydale’s streets had been an unending cacophony of violence and mayhem. Now, it was unnaturally silent; and they hadn’t seen a single being, human nor beast, since they departed the school’s library.

More worrying was the number of empty vehicles idling on the streets with broken windows and doors seemingly ripped from their frames. What unnerved Angel most was he didn’t see or smell blood. Whatever overtook their passengers had done so quickly enough to prevent serious bodily harm.

“I’m certain everything is fine. We should hurry to Ethan’s,” Giles said.

After Willow mentioned the place where she bought her ghost costume was called Ethan's Costume Shop, Giles had become single-minded about going there. Giles fretting over Buffy’s hapless state suddenly transformed from worry to anger. Even now, Angel could still sense Giles’s rage. 

“We’re almost there,” Willow announced.

The lights were out in the shop and a closed sign hung on the door. There was nothing outwardly ominous about the shop, yet Angel felt dread tingling up his spine. Even possessed, Buffy sensed the wrongness emanating from the shop. She’d stopped resisting Angel’s grasp and all but bolted herself to his back, and peeked at Ethan’s from behind his shoulder.

“Wait here,” Willow said. “I’ll see if anyone’s inside.”

“Willow, wait,” Giles said before the girl ghosted through the front door.

Giles stepped forward and opened the door freely.

“Huh, wonder if it’s a trap,” the Chase girl remarked.

“You all wait here,” Giles said.

Angel could hear the dangerous tone in Giles’s voice, and once again wondered why this Ethan person had Giles so on edge.

“Yeah, I’m not staying out here!” The Chase girl exclaimed.

“Cordelia's right,” Willow said. “I don’t think it’s safe to stand in the open. It was like a riot earlier.” Willow glanced at the dark storefronts that should have been open for business, and the empty sidewalks that should be crowded with pedestrians. “Something really bad must be happening to make everything this quiet.”

Before Giles could reply Buffy suddenly began screaming. Angel turned around and saw what caused her erupt into hysterics: fifty yards back the way they came, people of various ages, shapes, and sizes were quietly filling the sidewalks and street. Slowly, but surely, marching towards the group.

Whatever they were, they were like no demons Angel had ever seen before.

Angel saw most of the intruders wore ripped clothes that exposed chalky skin and inky black veins. A number of them had black scale-like protrusions on their faces and limbs, while others seemed to be wearing gloves made of dark gray or black metal. A few wore gimp suits covered in wires and rubber tubing, and had their arms wrapped in black casts with whirring and clicking tools attached where their hands should be.

The gimp suited ones also appeared to have one of their eyes covered by monocle-like lenses that glowed with red or amber light. Half of them had a laser beam pointer attached to one of their temples, or over one of their ears. The beams that could been seen were all aimed at the group. Angel looked down and saw several red and green colored dots held steady on his chest.

“Oh my god!” Willow exclaimed.

“Are those…?” Cordelia’s question trailed away as her expression morphed from one of recognition to pure horror.

“What?” Angel asked. “Are what?” 

Buffy continued to scream.

“Quickly, everyone inside!” Giles said. 

Willow ran passed Giles and phased through the store’s front window. Once they were all inside Giles slammed the door closed behind them and turned the deadbolt locks. Naked mannequins, racks of unsold monster masks, and scraps of leftover costumes on the shelves surrounded them, all of which added to the innate eeriness the shop exuded.

Buffy pushed away from Angel and hurried away from the door. She buried her hands in her hair, and in a frenzy clawed at her scalp until Angel was afraid she’d draw blood.

“We are doomed! You brigands have delivered me to my death!” Buffy cried out in despair.

“Those windows, and that door that is also mostly window, won’t keep them out,” Cordelia said, her voice empty of the rude confidence she usually projected when she spoke.

“What the hell are ‘them’?” Angel asked.

“Borg,” Willow answered flatly.

Incredulous, Angel said, “Those things are Swedish?”

Willow didn’t reply. Instead she seemed to stare unseeingly through one of the storefront’s windows. Angel was surprised, and a bit disappointed, to see Willow appear to go into shock. Willow had often faced vampires and demons at Buffy’s side, and he thought she was made of sterner stuff. 

Besides, the creatures about to overrun them posed no danger to her ghost form. 

When it was clear Willow wouldn’t respond, Cordelia spoke up.

“They’re The Borg. From _Star Trek_.” 

Angel had no idea what a Star Trek was, and Cordelia must have noticed his lost expression and began to explain.

“They’re like half machine and half whatever they assimilate.” Angel heard Cordelia’s heart begin to pound faster as she continued. “If they’re real, like really real,” her voiced cracked, “and there are enough of them...” 

Cordelia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Angel sensed all her fear responses decrease dramatically. It was impressive how swiftly she took control of her emotions. 

When she opened her eyes again she said in a steadier voice, “They can assimilate Sunnydale’s entire population in hours.”

Angel looked at Willow. He thought understood why she shut down now. Those Borg creatures were an apocalypse waiting to happen if they weren’t stopped!

Reading the expression Angel gave Willow, Cordelia said, “That’s not why she’s upset.”

“What—?”

Giles chose that moment to storm the back area of the shop. Angel started to follow but hesitated when he saw Buffy tucked into the corner she’d claimed next to one of the shelves. She clutched her hands and quietly recited the Lord’s Prayer over and over. 

When the machines came she would be completely helpless. 

Angel had to protect her.

“Stay here. I’ll go with Giles,” Cordelia said without a hint of derision in her voice. Then she walked up to Willow and got in the girl’s face.

“Hey, you wanna sleep? Do it after we save damn world, okay?”

Willow blinked and flinched when she saw how closely Cordelia was standing.

“C’mon,” Cordelia ordered. 

She swept through the curtains Giles had gone through, and Willow followed closely behind. Angel could only hear snippets of what was said, but he overheard enough to know they found Ethan Rayne. Not long after Willow confirmed Ethan sold them their costumes the Borg began their assault on the costume shop.

Rupert Giles was incensed. Angry. Outraged. He felt like he was all the adjectives for pissed off when he finally laid eyes on his old friend.

Ethan was kneeling in the barely lit storeroom before white, two-faced bust of Janus, muttering Latin, Greek, Yoruba and a mix of several dead languages at a tongue-twisting pace.

“Chronos, Mari, Urðr, Ori, Shiva, Hemuset… Janus—I beseech you!” Ethan exclaimed thunderously before his voice turned weak and muttering again.

_Gods of time and fate? From many different pantheon, no less_. It wasn’t too uncommon to call the power of multiple gods at once, but Ethan was no great mage. If even half of those named gods gifted him with their grace Ethan was just as likely to explode as he was to channel it all.

“Ethan, what have you done?” Rupert asked.

Ethan twitched, and his rapid fire chanting slowed briefly before it picked up again. Giles wanted to go over and bash the man’s head in, but noticed Willow and Cordelia had followed him. He hesitated to act violently in front of the children, but he would bloody his hands if Ethan didn’t undo the spell that endangered Buffy, and undo it quickly.

“Giles, what’s he doing?” Willow asked.

“And what is that decor disaster?” Cordelia added, pointing at the Janus statue.

“Willow, is he the one who sold you the costumes?”

“Yeah. But, Giles—”

“Whatever it is you did to create this nightmare, Ethan, you will undo it. Now.”

The sound of shattering glass made the girls jump. Buffy’s hysterical screeching came next. Rupert removed his glasses and put them in his jacket pocket before he stalked towards Ethan.

“Alright, that’s enough.”

“No, wait,” Ethan rasped, his body shaking violently. 

“Then stop this madness.”

Now that he was closer, Rupert noticed how pallid and sweaty Ethan’s face was. He should be brimming with energy, instead he looked like he was about to drop dead at any moment.

“What’s happened?”

Ethan shuddered and coughed. “S-something… I don’t understand what went wrong,” he said. 

Rupert watched sweat drip from Ethan’s dark soppy hair like rain droplets. Most of the fabric of his red silk shirt was black with perspiration. Even the floor around Ethan was wet with his sweat.

Suddenly Rupert realized Ethan was suffering from casting exhaustion. He was using up life force to regulate the power granted him from the ether. Drawing from one’s core was like running a marathon while trying to play Grand Master level chess at the same time—one could only do so for so long before the mind and body shattered under the strain. 

Ethan’s stamina and concentration had to be at their absolute limits. 

“The costumes... the magic in them is being consumed then changed into the antithesis of magic.”

“It’s the Borg,” Willow said.

Giles glanced back at her. “What do you mean?”

“The Borg inject nanoprobes into people when they start the assimilation process,” said Willow. “The technology to create the nanoprobes is centuries more advanced than anything found on Earth.”

Rupert only understood half of what Willow told him, but it was enough. All Giles needed to understand was these Borg possessed science that was as, if not more, powerful than the magic that turned them from a thing of fiction into a dangerous reality.

“Ethan, damn you, stop the spell!” Rupert demanded. 

“That won’t be e-enough,” Ethan said. “I must turn the spell back on itself. If I don’t, what’s been changed by the corruption may not change back!”

“Mr. Giles! The Borg have probably assimilated half of Sunnydale by now!” Cordelia said.

Thousands of souls could be lost to those hideous machines if they didn’t act quickly! Then there was the fierce, ever more clamorous battle happening at the front of the store. Whatever Angel was doing to hold back the Cybermen rejects he wouldn’t be able to do it forever. His efforts all the more desperate since he couldn’t seriously injure or kill his opponents.

Buffy let out another blood-curdling scream.

“Whatever. You figure out this mess,” Cordelia told Rupert before she ran out to help Angel fight back the Borg.

Rupert didn’t bother to protest. The girl knew it was dangerous; she didn’t need him to state the obvious. Cordelia’s decisiveness made Rupert realize his worry for Buffy and wariness of Ethan had deprived him of his own clarity and boldness to act.

No longer.

Rupert knelt behind Ethan and placed his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. 

“Take what you need from me,” Rupert said. 

Then he dug his fingers into Ethan’s flesh until he could feel bone and his hand his was soaked in Ethan’s sweat. 

Rupert leaned in close and whispered, “If this is another one of your cons, Ethan…”

When Ethan didn’t appear to register pain that’s when Rupert understood just how on his back foot Ethan really was.

Ethan took a deep breath and began chanting. His words flowed more smoothly as the strength he drew from Rupert meant he didn’t need to pull from his own dwindling core and weaken his body further. 

Rupert soon began to feel Ethan siphon power from him. 

It was dangerous giving a man like Ethan Rayne unfettered access to his essence. Ethan could embed a curse, or dominate Rupert’s very will—even kill him. However, Rupert felt no ill intent through their connection. The one way flow of power between them was steady and quite painless as Ethan expertly drew from Rupert’s core and used the power to unweave the spell.

From the store front Rupert heard what sounded like a hundred buzzing robotic voices blaring from a dozen loud speakers.

“WE ARE THE BORG. YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS WILL BE ADDED TO OUR OWN. YOUR CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.” 

Following the Borg’s chilling declaration Buffy unleashed her most terrified scream yet. Rupert could hardly blame her. He imagined being near whatever made such a dire threat would scare him spit-less as well.

“Giles!” Cordelia called out. “Now would be a good time to stop these tentacle raping creeps!”

_Good Lord!_ Rupert didn’t want to find out why Cordelia called the Borg that. “Ethan, hurry.”

“Almost. When I give the word destroy the statue,” Ethan said then resumed chanting.

“Angel, help!” Cordelia cried out.

“Get away from her!” Angel shouted.

Willow must have joined the others in front at some point because she cried out Cordelia’s name. There was a scream that lasted only a few seconds before it was silenced. 

“Damn you, you bastards!” The outrage in Angel’s voice was palpable. 

A moment later Angel’s body came hurtling through the room like a cannonball, and only missed striking Rupert and Ethan by a hairsbreadth. Angel hit the back wall, head first. There was a crack of bone, the splatter of cold blood, then Angel was still. Of course he wasn’t dead, but he’d need time to heal. Until then he was out of the fight. 

“No! Leave me be, you monsters!” Buffy pleaded. 

“Stay back!” Willow yelled. 

Rupert heard Willow’s desperation and imagined the girl trying to shield Buffy from the Borg, and the Borg walking through her like she was air.

“Please, don’t!” Willow pleaded.

Rupert closed his eyes and waited for Buffy’s screaming to start. It came, full of panic and terror, then it was cut off as quickly as it had started. Gritting his teeth, Rupert pretended tears weren’t burning his eyes. 

“Now, Ripper!” Ethan said.

Rupert leaped at the bust just as the Borg swarmed inside. They came in two at a time, their white ashen skin and black veined appearance all the more unnerving up close. Rupert grabbed the statue with both hands and threw it at the floor as hard as he could. 

There was a flash of intense green light, and when Rupert looked up from the broken idol he saw confused but normal looking people asking each other where they were and how they got there. Rupert noticed none of the former Borg wore a costume; just the tattered remnants of everyday clothing.

Buffy and Cordelia pushed their way into the back of the shop. Buffy looked relieved to see Rupert, a feeling which Rupert certainly reciprocated. When Buffy’s gaze landed on Angel laying motionless on the other side of the room she ran over to aid him however she could. 

To Rupert’s surprise Cordelia also looked pleased to see him. Rupert gave her a warm smile and a nod, and she returned both. Rupert made a mental note to commend her for her courage later. 

Rupert searched for Willow in the crowd before he surmised she returned to her physical body after the spell ended.

“Well done, old man.”

Rupert looked down and saw Ethan laying on the floor on his side. For a very brief moment Rupert was tempted to tend to his old friend, but resisted. It was disappointing enough he didn’t feel like kicking Ethan’s guts out through his back. Rupert supposed he was simply happy they managed to stop the Borg and win the night.

“This could have been a massive disaster,” Rupert rebuked.

Ethan coughed and let out a wheezy chuckle. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Rupert with humorless eyes. Ethan’s exhaustion and bloodless pallor had aged him ten years. 

“Oh, it’s still a right mess, Rupert,” Ethan said.

When Willow’s spirit returned to her body she was standing on a sidewalk lifting a man wearing green military garb a foot off the ground by his throat. Two squirming tendrils coming out of her right hand were half an inch from making contact with the man’s neck. She let out a squeak and dropped him. He landed on his feet at first then crumpled to a crouch. He gasped for breath and looked up at Willow with eyes full of, not fear exactly, but he definitely looked like he expected Willow to attack him. When the man realized Willow wasn’t going to go after him, he rose to his feet and ran away as fast as his wobbly legs would allow.

“Sorry!” Willow shouted at the man’s retreating form.

After the man disappeared into the night, Willow rolled up her sleeves to examine her arms and hands. They felt strange. Heavier, but somehow lighter at the same time. 

Approximately seventy percent of her left arm was covered in an exoskeleton that was fused to her skin. It looked like dark gray metal made up of tightly interwoven latices of wires, circuits and microchips melded together into a singular mass. The metal was malleable like silicone, allowing Willow to bend and rotate her arm normally. When she tapped at the material, however, it still felt solid enough to be a soft metallic substance like copper or tin. Or maybe some kind of poly-carbonate?

She didn’t have fingertips anymore, they’d been replaced by the metal. The material was smooth and shaped like thimbles. They also transmitted tactile sensation. Willow remembered feeling the man’s sweat, and the heat from his skin as she choked him. 

Willow shook her head and tried not to think about the patterns of geometric shapes she understood, somehow, that floated in her field of vision and displayed the man’s body temperature and heart-rate. 

Willow’s other arm made her wince when she saw patches of the Borg metal on the back of her hand, forearm, and her upper arm. They made it look like her skin had been torn off after skidding over pavement, and the abrasions were scabbed over by the Borg metal. Implants the size of silver dollars spotted her wrist and forearm, though several spanned the entire length of her biceps and triceps. 

Her muscles felt stiff when she flexed them, yet still perfectly flexile. Willow quickly understood Borg implants had replaced most of the organic tissue in her right arm. What skin she had left on her arm was drained of all pigment. 

“No,” Willow whispered. “I’m—I can’t be—!”

Willow froze. 

The left side of her jaw felt constricted when she opened her mouth, like it was partially wired shut.

She traced her jawline with her right hand, because she didn’t want to see what geometric symbols would show up on her HUD if she used her left. She felt a strip of the bumpy Borg metal an inch wide start on her chin and follow her jawline. It wound around to the helix of her ear where it then circled the back of her skull like a tiara and terminated behind her other ear. 

Willow remembered if a Borg implant was on a person’s head then it was connected to their brain. 

She had an implant in her brain.

The thought of killer alien cyborg technology penetrating her skull and invading her brain should’ve made Willow shiver in disgust. Or had her curled up on the ground bawling her eyes out. Instead, she felt inexplicably calm. What emotions she did feel felt strange and incomprehensible to the cold, passionless awareness growing within her.

_Oh, no..._

Willow probed her rib cage and located two of her ribs that hadn’t been replaced by Borg components. She made a fist and fractured one of them with a single blow. She clenched her teeth and only let out a long strangled moan as she clutched her side and dropped to her knees. She inhaled pain and let it blow away the stoic fog that had suppressed her feelings. 

Her HUD alerted her to the injury and reported nanoprobes had begun the slow process of mending her rib, but not, she noticed, doing much to sooth her pain.

_Borg register damage. Borg do not respond to pain. Sure do feel it though._

Willow smile bitterly. As long as she could still acknowledge her pain, she was more human than drone. She would break every non-Borg bone in her body if she had to to keep it that way. 

Willow stood and relished the fantastic agony that followed. 

It was time to stop wallowing and go find her friends. And Cordelia.

With a thought, Willow retracted her assimilation tubules then took in her immediate surroundings. She was on Main and Oak Park, three blocks from the house where her body collapsed and was likely assimilated. The early morning sky was still dark, yet to Willow it was bright as mid-day. Not only could she see in the dark, but the fidelity of her vision ranged into the telescopic if she concentrated. She could also hear the faintest whisper for a hundred meters in every direction.

Willow took a deep, pain-filled breath, released it, then closed her eyes. She located the subroutine that operated her sensory node then gave it the command to run an endless diagnostic on itself. She had no idea how she knew how to do it, or how she knew it would work, but she did. It was as easy as writing her name. After the node was disabled Willow felt like she’d put on glasses with lenses smeared with Vaseline, and stuffed her ears with cotton balls. Willow didn’t mind—her freaky new super senses made her feel uneasy. Less human. She’d get by with her regular senses for the time being. 

Willow headed for the school, where she hoped the others regrouped. Along the way she saw adults who looked lost, confused, or in shock as they made their way back to where they last remembered being. A number of them very loudly complained about not knowing where their cars were. None of them wore costumes, just regular clothes that were torn or shredded in places.

When Willow did come across people wearing a costume it was other kids. She didn’t recognize most of them, but she did see a few who went to Sunnydale High. She even knew some of their names. 

They lumbered around like zombies, or were sprawled on lawns and sidewalks. Staring quietly at nothing. One girl Willow came across sat on a curb with her knees tucked under her chin, and her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. The girl was sobbing so hard Willow was tempted to stop and help her.

As Willow came closer, she realized the weeping girl was Harmony.

There had been times when Willow wanted to knock Harmony Kendall on her butt, or at least make her cry once for all the times she picked on Willow and made her cry. But listening to Harmony’s wretched sobs hurt worse than her broken rib. 

Willow decided she wouldn’t go near Harmony. She was a terrifying Borg-like reminder, and Harmony had clearly been through enough trauma. Instead, Willow let her hair down, obscured her implant, and tried to keep her distance from anyone else she crossed paths with. 

When Willow reached Thousand Oaks Drive a couple approached her. She spotted tubules marks on their necks that on any other night she would’ve mistaken for vampire bites. If the woman recognized Willow’s Borg implants she didn’t let it show. The man flinched when he saw them, but he didn’t freak out. Still, even without fancy Borg senses, Willow could tell she made him uneasy. 

The woman, a woman Ms. Calender’s age, held up a wallet-sized photo of a girl who looked about nine-years-old. 

“Have you seen this girl? Her name is Sara Tyson,” Mrs. Tyson asked with frantic hope in her eyes. 

It was too dark to see the picture clearly, so for a few seconds Willow used her enhanced vision to make out the little girl’s features. 

“No, I haven’t seen her,” she lied.

Mrs. Tyson squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them there was no mistaking the boundless determination that burned in them. Mrs. Tyson thanked Willow for her time then Mr. Tyson, still watching Willow like she could strike at any moment, took his wife’s hand and led her away to resume their search. 

Willow watched them leave and wondered if it was her Borg-ness that made her deny seeing Sara. She had lied so easily and didn’t feel guilty at all. Willow always felt guilty when she lied. 

Was it cold logic that made Willow think it served no purpose to tell them the truth? Or was it because she didn’t want to destroy their hope when she told them their daughter might never come home? 

Willow touched the implant on her face and remembered that Ethan guy’s words back at the costume shop about the spell being consumed and corrupted; twisted into something unexpected and dangerous… forever.

Sara was one of the eight kids Xander chaperoned that night. Willow remembered with crystal clarity the clown costume Sara wore was identical to the one child Michael Myers wore when he stabbed his sister to death. Willow recalled how brightly the little girl blushed when Xander called her a genius and praised her homage to a Halloween classic.

No, little Sara Tyson and none of the kids in Xander’s group would be going home. 

They’d been changed for too long.

Xander, after all, assimilated them first.


	2. Not the Nerd You’re Looking For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Scoobies try to figure out Willow's condition, they get help from an unexpected source.

When Willow walked into the library Buffy and Angel sat facing each other at the table nearest the check-in counter. Buffy was repacking a first aid kit, and Angel was inspecting the bandage neatly taped to his forehead with his hand.

Cordelia was standing in front of the book cage glaring at... Ethan Rayne? Giles was leaning against the door frame of his office reading a book.

Buffy and Cordelia still wore their costumes. It made sense in Cordelia’s case, but Giles let Buffy keep extra clothes in the library in case she had a rough night slaying. And tonight definitely counted as rough.

Willow watched Buffy and Angel make goo-goo eyes at each other as Buffy latched the kit closed.

Willow rolled her eyes and smiled.

_It’s all so clear now_.

“Hey guys,” Willow greeted.

When Buffy saw Willow she let out a breathy ‘oh, my god!’. 

Angel jumped to his feet when he saw Willow in all her Borg glory. His expression was a mix of fear and disgust. Giles dropped his book and his face went extremely pale. Cordelia kept glaring daggers at Ethan and didn’t acknowledge Willow’s arrival at all.

“Willow, what… what happened to your eyes?” Buffy asked.

Her eyes? Willow could only guess what they must look like if they stood out more than her chalky complexion and the enormous implant on her face.

Willow approached them slowly. She didn’t believe any one there wanted to hurt her, but Willow couldn’t ignore how twitchy Angel and Giles looked as she came closer.

“She was assimilated,” Giles said.

Cordelia’s head swung around at the word assimilated. 

“Holy crap!” Cordelia said, gaping at Willow with a rare display of uneasiness.

“But, how?” Buffy asked.

“Yeah, weren’t you a ghost, or something?” Cordelia asked. 

“My body wasn’t.”

Buffy got up from her chair and rushed over to hug Willow much to Angel and Giles’s visible dismay.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Willow replied, “but I’m not dead either, so I guess it could be worse.”

“This is what you were talking about,” Giles said to Ethan.

With his fingers clawed through the links of the cage’s door, Ethan observed Willow with curiosity gleaming in his eyes.

“Certainly seems like I missed one.” Ethan paused. “Wait, you said you were non-corporeal?”

Willow looked at Giles, wordlessly asking if she should be answering Ethan’s questions. Giles gave her a short nod.

“I’m pretty sure I died and my spirit left my body. What are you thinking?”

Ethan peered at Willow for a beat then smiled and said, “You already know what’s happened to you, don’t you, young Miss?”

Willow had a good idea about the ‘science’ part of what happened, but was sketchy about the magic part.

“Oh, I get it,” Cordelia said.

Cordelia walked up and looked Willow over before she went on to say, “When the Borg assimilated your body, Borg implants—you have a bunch, I bet—took over your involuntary and autonomic functions. You were literally a Borg zombie until your soul went back into your body.”

Willow gaped at Cordelia.

“What the—! How do you know so much about Borg stuff?” Buffy asked.

Cordelia suddenly looked like she got caught picking her nose and eating what she pulled out.

In a show of mercy for her long time nemesis, Willow saved Cordelia from having to explain her nerdy sci-fi knowledge.

“She’s right,” Willow said, “and I’m kinda stuck with them because they’re fused to all my vital organs.”

Captain Picard survived after Doctor Crusher removed his Borg implants, but that was with 24th century medicine. It wasn’t even the millennium yet. And 400 years is a long time to wait.

“Fascinating!” Ethan said, earning nasty looks from everyone in the room except Willow.

“It is not “fascinating”, you jerk!” Buffy exclaimed. “You’re going to fix this, or so help me I will beat the smarmy out of you!”

“You’ll have to get in line,” Giles said, his voice more growly than Willow had ever heard it sound before.

Ethan rolled his eyes and sighed.

“I told you before, I don’t understand how those Borg things—” Ethan looked at Willow. “No offense, young Miss—bolloxed my spell. And I’ve never been good with high-tech, scientific,” Ethan’s nose scrunched when he said the word scientific, “drivel.”

“But is it real science?” Angel asked. “Cordelia told me Borg are from a fictional television series. How can their technology still exist in Willow without magic to make it real?” 

“How indeed,” Giles said.

Eventually all eyes gravitated towards Cordelia much to her visible dismay. She cringed and looked as though she wanted to disappear down a very deep hole.

“What are you all looking at?” Cordelia exclaimed. “I am so not the nerd you’re looking for!”

When she realized she quoted Star Wars, Cordelia grimaced and ducked her head like she hoped no one noticed what she said.

“I-I mean where is your resident nerd, anyway? That’s who you should be asking!”

Willow and Buffy exchanged looks. Willow had wondered if Buffy said anything to the others about Xander’s costume, but going by the blank expressions on their faces Buffy had kept it to herself. And Ethan, it seemed, hadn’t connected the set of black motorcycle body armor he sold Xander to the Borg’s exo-plating. 

“Oh. Yes. Where is Xander?” Giles asked as though it only just occurred to him Xander was missing.

Willow and Buffy shared another look.

“Don’t tell me the dweeb got hurt, or something,” Cordelia said.

“No. I mean, I don’t think he’s hurt,” Buffy said, but she didn’t sound very confident.

Willow stepped forward and said, “Xander dressed as a Borg for Halloween.”

The library went quiet as the others absorbed what Willow told them.

Ethan finally broke the silence. “Ah, patient zero,” he said.

“Good Lord! Were is he now?”

Cordelia tsked and said, “Probably too embarrassed to show his face after his lame costume almost killed the whole town.”

When Willow charged forward Buffy captured Willow by the wrist before she could get within throttling distance of Cordelia’s throat.

Cordelia raised her hands up defensively and stepped back. “Whoa! Calm down, girl!” she said. “I know it’s not Xander’s fault,” she pointed her thumb over her shoulder at Ethan in the book cage, “it’s his.”

Willow took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. When she felt like she didn’t want to strangle the life out of Cordelia anymore she turned to Buffy who looked at her with a shocked and confused expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re strong,” Buffy whispered. “Like, really strong.”

Willow blinked. She knew she could lift a 200 pound man a foot off the ground now, but strong enough to amaze Buffy? Like things weren’t scary enough!

“I’m fine now,” Willow whispered back and Buffy let go.

“Um, so where is Xander?” Cordelia hazarded to ask.

“I don’t know,” Willow said. 

Willow took another deep breath. She needed to stop wigging out and tell them everything. About Xander and the missing kids.

“I think he’s still Borg.”

“What do you mean he’s still a Borg?” Buffy asked. “He should’ve turned back into himself like I did.”

“He didn’t. I-I’m not sure why—and there’s something else. I think he assimilated the kids he was chaperoning. I think they’re still Borg. Maybe others, too.”

“Explain,” Giles said. “Are they like yourself?”

Willow shook her head. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she was certain whatever Xander and those kids might be, it wasn’t like her.

Cordelia gasped and the color drained from her face until she was almost as pale as Willow. She walked over to the nearest table and dropped heavily into one of the chairs.

“Willow is only partially assimilated,” Cordelia said.

“What—?” Giles started then fell silent.

All at once he, Buffy, and Angel knew what Cordelia’s declaration meant.

Angel said, “They were changed into one of those robot looking Borg.”

Willow and Cordelia’s eyes met. Willow could tell by Cordelia’s haunted expression that she understood what it meant to be fully assimilated into the Borg.

Buffy stalked over to the book cage.

“No more games. You fix this. Now.”

Ethan stumbled away from the cage door, and Buffy, until his back hit wall.

“I told you, I can’t! Whatever these Borg are they’re more science than magic!”

“He’s right,” Cordelia said, lowering her head so she could stealthily wipe tears from her cheeks.

“Magic started this mess, magic can unravel it,” Giles scoffed. “Perhaps Ethan’s magic is too weak, but surely stronger—”

Giles paused. Willow recognized the look on his face. It’s the one he had when he remembered something important.

“Never mind. Go on, Ms. Chase,” Giles said. 

Whatever Giles recalled, he chose not to share it. 

“Uh, okay. So… Borg use nanoprobes, and nanoprobes are just a fancy way of saying nanobots, and nanobots are real. Not as advanced as nanoprobes but, one day, they will be.”

Cordelia returned her gaze to Willow.

“That means it’s theoretically possible for Borg nanoprobes to interact with the human body and change it’s cells into a version of itself that doesn’t need magic to be real.”

“That could explain why after beseeching numerous gods Ethan was still unable to fully reverse the effects of the spell,” Giles opined. “Even with all that magical power… These nanoprobes must be powerful indeed.”

“What are you two not telling us?” Angel asked.

Cordelia was actively trying to fight back her tears now, and failing. So she covered her face with her hands and shook her head.

Willow understood why Cordelia didn’t want to tell them everything, it was just too heartbreaking. But the others needed to understand. They needed to know the truth.

“When the Borg assimilate people they don’t give them suits to wear, the armor is fused to their bodies. Their limbs and organs are removed and replace them with cybernetic components. And… And…”

“You feel everything. When they cut off your arm, or drill into your head, you feel all of it,” Cordelia said, her face still hidden behind her hands.

Buffy walked up to Willow and stared almost pleadingly into her eyes.

“Not the kids, right? They don’t do that to kids?”

Willow wanted to tell Buffy of course the Borg didn’t assimilate children, but she couldn’t lie. Willow pulled Buffy into a hug. Buffy held on fiercely and buried her face in Willow’s shoulder. Giles removed his glasses and roughly massaged his brow. Angel’s face was blank, but Willow noticed his fists were tightly clenched on top of his thighs.

Buffy pulled out of their hug and asked, “What about Xander? He was transformed into a whole Borg by the spell. Shouldn’t he be back to normal?”

“I don’t know, Buffy,” Willow replied. “Something’s wrong, or he’d have shown up by now.”

Cordelia wiped her tears away with an aggressive swipe of her hands and stood up, her expression settled and resolute.

“Definitely something went wrong,” Cordelia said. She walked up to Willow. “Do you have nanoprobes?” she asked.

Willow’s eyes nervously swept over everyone in the library before she answered.

“Yes.”

Cordelia bit her lower lip and her eyes looked to the side as she considered Willow’s admission.

“That strengthens our theory,” Cordelia finally said.

“Does that mean Willow can assimilate people too?” Angel asked.

Cordelia shrugged. “Probably.”

“My, God! There could be thousands out there have the ability to create more Borg!” Giles said.

“I don’t think so,” Willow replied. “Not thousands anyway. Ethan probably did turn most of Sunnydale back to normal.”

“Damn near killed me,” Ethan said.

“Too bad it didn’t,” Cordelia said. Then she went on to say in the same breath, “You know, people walking around like less hot versions of Seven of Nine isn’t what makes me want to lock myself in a panic room and scream forever. 

“Have you heard the Collective in your thoughts?” Cordelia suddenly asked Willow.

Willow’s eyes widened. “No, I haven’t! Maybe that means—“

Cordelia shook her head. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said not unkindly. “It could mean the Collective cut your connection when they sensed your soul return to your body. Or, maybe, you were never part of the Collective to begin with.”

“Collective? What are you talking about?” Giles asked.

“That freaky modulated chorus we heard back at Ethan’s,” Cordelia said. “That was the Collective. A bunch of networked super computers speaking and acting as one.”

“That sounds quite ominous,” Giles said. “I’m guessing the Borg wield great power in such a state?” 

Cordelia nodded. “Imagine a hundred billion Stephen Hawkings working together to perform countless trillions of calculations per second. Add nanoprobes, and there’s no limit to what the Borg can do.”

“Like assimilate everybody?” Angel asked.

“The Borg want to attain perfection above all else; assimilation is just one of the ways they try to get there,” Cordelia replied.

“So the question now is: what do the Borg that may still be out there want?” Giles said.

“We shouldn’t start thinking they’re just Borg!” Buffy exclaimed. “They could be back to being themselves like me!”

“That might be worse,” Cordelia said.

“How on Earth could that be worse?” asked Giles.

Willow answered for Cordelia, having reached the same conclusion after she came across Harmony earlier. She held up her Borg modified arms, and said, “I know why this happened to me. What if they don’t?”

A ponderous silence descended over the library once more.

“They must be terrified,” Buffy finally said.

“We need to find them, and help them,” Cordelia announced.

“Agreed,” said Giles.

Everyone, except Ethan, gathered around the table where Angel sat. After Cordelia took a seat Giles asked her where do they start. For a moment it looked as if she was going to protest.

“Alright,” Cordelia began, “since we know the Borg are giving the full makeover that means they set up base somewhere.”

“What makes you so sure?” Buffy asked.

“It’s what they did in First Contact and Voyager.”

Cordelia blushed at the questioning looks she got. Willow had never seen Queen C look so flustered before—it was very cute. And her costume’s cat ears and whiskers elevated her cuteness to utter adorableness.

“A-Anyway,” Cordelia went on, “I’m pretty sure they found a nice out of the way location and assimilated it to suit their needs.”

“Just a moment, I have maps of Sunnydale and the surrounding area,” Giles said, before he hurried into his office.

“There’s a cave system that connects to the sewers—are they a possible location?” Angel asked.

Cordelia pondered for a few moments before she replied, “Maybe, but I think it’s more likely they’d use someplace they can more efficiently assimilate. Somewhere with a lot of technology.”

Giles returned with several rolled up maps.

“The military base?” Angel asked as Giles unrolled each map on the table.

Cordelia shook her head. “If they have the numbers I can see them trying to take it,” she said, “but if they have access to Xander’s memories then they know high caliber rifles would kill a lot of them before they’re able to adapt. If they even can. Tactically, it’d be risky.”

“Here.” Buffy jabbed a finger at spot on a the maps that marked the location of the docks. 

Even before Cordelia said anything Willow knew Buffy was right.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s perfect. Nearby warehouses full of machine parts and electronics coming in and going out port. And not a lot of people around to notice, who can be quickly and quietly assimilated if they do. Yeah, this is—”

Cordelia stilled.

“What’s wrong?” Willow asked.

“I’m an idiot,” Cordelia whispered.

Cordelia looked to each of them before her gaze finally rested on Willow.

“We’re thinking too small.”

“I don’t under—”

A powerful tremor shook the library. Books tumbled from the shelves and Giles’s office window wobbled before it cracked and shattered. When the shaking stopped ten seconds later Willow heard car alarms and dogs barking outside.

Cordelia slammed her fist against the table startling everyone. She stood then dashed outside through the library’s back entrance, Willow, Buffy, and Giles hot on her heels. They chased her around to the front of the school. Cordelia skipped down the front steps and came to a stop on the street in the bus drop off zone. She was looking to the west, towards the docks. 

No, Willow realized, Cordelia was staring up. 

“I’m so stupid,” Cordelia said to herself.

They all watched a Borg cube rise into the sky as dawn broke behind them. 

Willow turned on her sensory node and zoomed in on the cube. Sunlight from the rising sun hit the cube revealing its ugly perforated facade of black plating, pipes, cables and neon green incandescent lights. The cube was small, three times wider than Sunnydale High’s entire campus. Still much smaller than the Borg cube Willow saw on TNG, which was almost 30 cubic kilometers.

“They used one of the docked ships,” Cordelia said. Willow had never heard her sound so resigned, so thwarted. “Probably a cargo ship, or a tanker. They assimilated the ship, its crew, and the surrounding area for raw materials. They had the whole night to do it. Plenty of time.”

“I-I should contact the Council,” Giles said, but he was reluctant to look away from the spectacle above.

“This is bad, right?” Buffy asked, also mesmerized by the Borg cube’s slow ascent into the sky.

“I don’t know,” Cordelia answered. “They haven’t started craving Sunnydale like a turkey, yet, so that’s nice.”

“Let’s hope they don’t, because I’m going to have heck of time trying to slay that thing from down here.”

Willow closed her eyes and turned off her super-vision. When she opened them again she said, “Xander’s up there.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. The kids too,” Cordelia agreed.

“Is he still our Xander?” Buffy asked.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Willow said.

Willow closed her eyes again and accessed her Borg subroutines until she located her neural transceiver. Her HUD showed it was remotely disabled the second her soul returned to her body. Confirming Cordelia’s theory on when Willow was cut off from the Collective. After preforming a diagnostic on her transceiver Willow discovered it wasn’t damaged in any way, just simply turned off. 

It was strange. Why would the Collective only deactivate her beacon if they wanted to separate her messy humanity from their perfection? Willow wanted to ask Cordelia what she thought, but time was running out, she could feel it. So without hesitation, Willow reactivated the beacon.

“What did you just do?” Cordelia asked after Willow opened her eyes.

“I made a phone call.”

Cordelia’s cheeks puffed before she exhaled and asked, “Are you sure?”

“What?” Buffy said looking from Willow to Cordelia and back again. “Sure about about what?”

“I reconnected to the Collective,” Willow said.

“Is that wise?”

“Giles, we need answers,” Willow said. “I can’t think of another—”

Willow suddenly found herself in another place. 

“—way?” 

She stood on one of many walkways suspended over an immense chasm of Borg machinery. Harsh green light emitted from almost every visible surface, and an electric humming filled the warm, humid air. The hum was almost soothing, even pleasing, the more Willow paid attention to it. On either end of the walkway were countless levels of alcoves that, as far a Willow could tell, extended from one end of the cube to the other. 

Even with her enhanced vision Willow didn’t see any Borg installed in the alcoves. There also didn’t seem to be any Borg in her immediate vicinity, either. From what Willow remembered, the cube should be swarming with drones performing tasks to maintain its systems.

_Am I here alone_? Willow wondered. 

No. 

Someone, or something, was here. 

“Hello?”

Her greeting was met by silence.

“Xander?”

A buzzing hum followed by crackling static reverberated through the air. It lasted a few seconds before Willow could make out any words. One word, really, spoken with a thousand voices.

“ **SORRY**.”


	3. Look Upward...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Borg invasion of Sunnydale doesn't go unnoticed.

The base was still under construction when the attack came. Sixty percent of the facility was fully operational, the rest was covered in plastic tarps, and noodles and noodles of wiring hung from holes in the walls and ceilings. The equipment that was supposed to connect to all that wiring hadn’t even been requisitioned yet.

Only a skeleton crew was assigned to run the sections that needed overseeing. A handful of technicians and DoD sub-contractors with security clearance even she didn’t have. Most would have been reassigned and gone before the installation was up and running. At last count, nine of them had been taken.

The soldiers on site were mostly MPs, but she did have, or used to have, a full contingent of agents under her and Colonel McNamara’s direct command while the 314 Project was being set up. Half had already begun their genetic enhancements. Maggie wondered if it was a coincidence the—what did Agent Gates call them? The Borg? Took all but a lucky few of her enhanced soldiers.

The Borg took other personnel as well, including McNamara. Not counting her agents, at least fifty base personnel were missing. The number could go up or down depending on how many people were off base, or managed to escape during the attack.

They took equipment by the ton. Bleeding edge machinery worth hundreds of millions. Maggie didn’t expect the equipment to be replaced soon.

Most significantly the Borg took every atom of their uranium and plutonium stores. Maggie suspected the fusion materials had been the true aim of the Borg’s infiltration. From all reports twenty black armored Borg “beamed” into each level and began marching through the complex, only stopping when attacked, or when a piece of equipment caught their attention. Otherwise, they systematically converged on the Radioactive Containment Unit.

Security footage from the RCU showed the first five Borg that reached its security door. One inserted wires from from its fingers into the security pad and gained access within seconds. Once inside each Borg walked up to a containment vessels holding the radioactive material, touched their casings, and vanished with them in a shimmer of green light. Then a few moments later another group of Borg entered the RCU and inserted their tubules into the monitoring equipment left behind. They stood motionless for a little over two minutes before vanishing with a piece of technology. Then another group arrived, then another, the process repeating until the room was stripped bare. Not even a single shielded fiber optic cable was left behind.

Billions in technology stolen, half their staff assimilated on the spot, or taken away to be assimilated somewhere else if Agent Gates was right, and one hundred pounds of weapons grade uranium and plutonium now in the possession of a seemingly unstoppable, hostile alien force.

It was an absolute disaster.

The only reason Maggie still had a job was because the Borg, for some baffling reason, left ADAM untouched.

According to Gates once a victim is assimilated into the Borg Collective the Collective knows everything the assimilated victim knows. So the Borg most certainly had knowledge of ADAM after Dr. Angleman, her co-lead on the project, was taken.

ADAM, the most advanced piece of technology on Earth, a creature very much like the Borg themselves, yet they ignored section 314 completely.

It didn’t make sense.

Reports of the Borg attack had gone all the way up to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, maybe even the President, and Maggie heard there was speculation at the Pentagon that the Borg were afraid of ADAM, and that’s why they avoided it. As 314’s project leader, and the only senior member of the project to evade capture, they needed her now more than ever to keep developing what they believed was their only defense against the Borg.

Maggie was less confident it was fear that kept the Borg from taking ADAM. From everything Agent Gates told her the Borg possessed mind-boggling technology. Tech at least four hundred years more advanced than anything seen on Earth. Their transporter alone made them terrifying enough to loosen any rational person’s bowels. So why would they be afraid of a tool created by humans who, when compared to the Borg, were primates throwing bones at the sky?

Still no one at the Pentagon wanted to hear Maggie’s reservations, and she she knew better than to offer them.

She accepted her orders to get the Initiative up and running as soon as possible. With the assurance they would find her a hundred billion dollars, more staff, and another Colonel, so she could continue the 314 Project with an eye set on mass production.

Maggie made it clear to the Pentagon that before the attack the Initiative was on scheduled to begin full operations in six months, but the Borg attack had delayed their time-table by at least a year. So they shouldn’t expect anything substantial before then. For once there was no push back, or threats of replacing her with someone who could get faster results. Ward himself promised to give her all the time she needed.

It almost made Maggie believe in miracles.

*********************************************************************

After a four minute shower and a change of clothes, Maggie was entrenched in her office doing what would have been McNamara’s job of taking phone calls from every stripe of Pentagon official who demanded a report on the Borg attack.

After things settled down at the Initiative she’d eventually have to meet with most of them in person, but until then they’d have settle for grilling her over the phone. She avoided a debrief by the National Security Council, at least. Thankfully, Ward would have to suffer through that nightmare, not her.

Maggie recounted the survivors’ accounts, as well as the content of Agent Gates’s report, but Maggie’s lack of detailed Borg knowledge only caused anger and confusion in the admirals, generals, and DoD adjuncts she spoke with. Communications became even more hostile when Maggie couldn’t adequately explain to what extent national security was compromised after the assimilation of so many personnel with high security ratings. Maggie thought she might go deaf from all their screaming.

By the tenth irate general, Maggie never thought she would miss Colonel McNamara so much.

Frankly, she was grateful when the earthquake struck. It gave her the excuse she needed to put an especially nasty general on hold while she called the Initiative's surviving section heads to find out if the base suffered any serious damage or casualties. Ten minutes later she was back on the phone with her so-called superiors being yelled at.

Eventually she caved and called Gates to her office. She needed him on hand when she got asked a particularly pedantic questions about the Borg she couldn’t answer. Maggie didn’t relish inviting a subordinate to witness her being berated, but she could not make rational sense of Borg. She needed someone who understood and, most importantly, believed in how they worked.

She was also tired of being called a know-nothing incompetent in subtle, and not so subtle, ways.

She was still on the phone with a Senator from Appropriations when Gates, ignoring protocol and basic courtesy, barged into her office. From the look on the agent’s face, and the sweat soaking through his shirt, he’d hauled ass to come tell her something cataclysmic happened.

“I’ll have to call you back, Senator Kinsey,” Maggie said, lowering the phone to its cradle before the senator could respond.

“What now?”

“Ma’am!”

Gates was breathing so hard he only seemed to get out ‘Ma’am’ with a great deal of effort.

“Catch your breath, Agent, then tell me what’s going on.”

Gates gulped in a huge breath, held it, then let it out before he tried speaking again.

“There’s a Borg cube floating over the docks!”

“Borg cube?”

Maggie remembered Gates mentioning something in his report about the Borg flying through space in a cube thousands of meters in size. The thought of a construct that enormous within Earth’s atmosphere, and armed with the weapons Gates described, was too horrifying to contemplate.

“Show me.”

Gates led her to the cargo bay on the south side of the complex. The bay was supposed to have a thirty by thirty foot, 48 inch thick titanium door, but it was one of the first things the Borg beamed away. Beyond the compromised entrance was a hidden road used to haul large equipment to the base.

The Initiative was miles from Sunnydale’s docks, but the Cube was clearly visible just a few feet after exiting the bay. Even from a long distance it was easy to recognize the cubed shape of the Borg ship. It was smaller than Maggie expected, but still the largest flying craft she’d even seen.

Other base staff also watched the cube. Half of them looked at the monstrosity with amazed awe, the other half looked like they were about to have nervous breakdowns. Maggie empathized with both reactions, but leaned more towards wanting the thing gone.

“How long has it been hovering there?”

“It rose from the docks approximately ten minutes ago,” Gates answered.

_Must be what caused the earthquake_ , Maggie surmised.

“But it’s not hovering,” Gates said. “It’s higher than when I went to tell you.”

_Is it possible the thing had been underwater this whole time? For how long? Or are the Borg heading back to space? Is that a good thing? Or are they gaining height to attack from a safer distance?_

Maggie had too many questions.

Agent Miller, another lucky soldier who managed to avoid assimilation hustled over to them, a walkie-talkie pressed against his right ear.

“Ma’am, we have word Wilkins Army Base is about to scramble two F16s to intercept the Borg cube.”

“Damn it,” Maggie said. She looked back at the cube and held her hand out at Miller. “Give me that. You two, give me space.”

Once Gates and Miller backed far enough away to to not overhear the conversation she was about to have, Maggie switched the HT over to a secure channel. Even secured, she’d need to be careful about what she said. Anyone could be listening, and the base commander’s clearance only went so high.

Maggie gave the operator her 14 digit pass code and waited to be connected to Wilkins’ base commander.

Three minutes later Colonel Samms’s voice roared through the walkie and almost blew out what was left of her eardrum.

“Who the hell is this?”

Maggie didn’t take offense. She just dragged the man from overseeing an offensive against an alien craft that suddenly appeared in his proverbial backyard. She’d be annoyed too.

“Colonel Samms, I need you to call back your planes.”

“I don’t know who you think you are to order me to do anything, but I’m not calling back those F16s on anyone’s say-so except the President of the God Damn United States!”

Samms’s defiant declaration made it clear he was acting on his own authority. If he actually had presidential authority he’d have told her so and promptly cut the line. And while she hadn’t spoken to the President personally, it was strongly implied by twelve people well above Samuel’s pay-grade she had spoken to that the president wanted no hostile action taken against the Borg unless absolutely necessary. Maggie was sure the Borg cube slowly levitating up into the morning sky did not merit launching Sidewinders at it.

“Colonel: Oscar-Oscar-November-812-219-Papa-314.”

There was a long silence on the other end. The pause went on for so long Maggie wasn’t sure if Samms was still on the line.

“If that thing harms even one American citizen I will make it my life’s mission to take you down, lady,” Samms growled, and then he definitely hung up on her.

_A bit late for that_ , Maggie thought.

She waved Gates and Miller back over.

“Any word on Finn and the other agents that were on patrol?” she asked as she handed the HT back to Miller.

“No, Ma’am,” both answered.

Maggie suppressed a sigh and schooled her expression to avoid showing her disappointment. Riley was one of her favorites. While commanders were known to have subordinates they favored, Maggie wasn’t a typical commander. She didn’t want to alienate herself, or Finn, from the other soldiers under her command because she was fond of him.

She liked Finn not just because his body responded to her gene therapy with markedly positive results, but also because he was smart, skilled, and most importantly, loyal to Maggie despite her lack of official military rank. It was a rare thing for a woman like Maggie Walsh to have the unquestioning respect of any man; it was even rarer to get it from a man wearing a uniform.

“I see. I want who ever’s still upright gathered in the Mess in—”

Maggie looked at her watch and winced when she realized she’d been fielding calls for six hours straight.

“In three hours. 09:30.”

Now that the proverbial cat was out of the bag, Maggie needed to begin planning how the Initiative would deal with the populace discovering the Borg were real. They’d also need to calculate what their own exposure was. There was every chance some hostile government, or worse, the Press, might discover the Borg’s attack on the Initiative. They needed to be ready to deal with the fallout if it happened.

They may have to pull up stakes and reestablish their operation somewhere else. Or mothball everything. Maggie needed to get her people ready for every possible scenario.

Of course the NID might have the whole mess covered up by dinner, but Maggie rather not take any chances.

Both agents saluted and started to jog away. Maggie called out to Gates and told him to stay back.

“Ma’am?”

“Come to my office,” she said, this time not holding back a weary sigh. “I’m going to need you to help answer every fu—ah, provide details about the Borg folks at the Pentagon might want to know.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well, gosh, look at that!”

Allan Finch was looking. He’d seen many strange things since he began working for Mayor Wilkins, most of them terrible beyond imagining, but watching a clearly alien vessel fly up from the bay was something he never expected to see.

Allen and the Mayor stood on the roof of City Hall. It was one of largest buildings in Sunnydale and its roof gave them a good vantage point to view the cube shaped craft.

“Do you know what that is, Mr. Finch?”

“A space ship?”

Wilkins let out a mirthful chuckle. “Oh, it’s more than just a space ship. That is a Borg cube.”

“Borg cube?” Allen asked, not understanding what the Swedish had to do with the ship in the sky.

“Oh, you know, from Star Trek? The Next Generation, to be precise.”

“Sir?”

Allen’s ‘Sir?’ wasn’t a question of him not understanding what Star Trek was, he was familiar enough with the program. Though he had never seen or heard of whatever version The Next Generation was. Allen was never much of a television watcher, he enjoyed digging through the pages of books and learning his way around computers more. No, Allen’s question came from his surprise Wilkins knew anything about Star Trek.

“I’m sure it may shock you to know, but I enjoy Star Trek very much,” Wilkins said, understanding Allen’s dubiousness. “A story about hope for a peaceful future when mankind has come together and journeyed to the stars. So inspiring! So wholesome!”

Allen didn’t know what to say. Wilkins always seemed sincere when he spoke of family values, and things being good for the community. Then without a shred of remorse he’d send demons to massacre innocent people who had become inconvenient.

“I suppose so, Mayor Wilkins.”

“They’ve had some wonderfully talented guest stars, too!”

Sunnydale residents were crowding the streets below. There was less panic than Allen expected as the citizens gawked at the Borg ship. Allen suspected the previous night’s chaos might have something to do with the small crowd’s subdued reaction. Details about Halloween night were spotty, but according to witnesses Allen spoke to, nearly half of Sunnydale’s population had been under the influence of a powerful curse. Apparently it’d gotten so dangerous Sunnydale PD stopped responding to calls after the officers they previously sent out vanished without a trace.

“Well, I’m sure this will all work out,” Wilkins said.

Wilkins turned around and headed toward the roof access door. Allen followed close behind.

The pair entered the building and descended down a flight of stairs to the fourth floor. From there they made their way to the Mayor’s office. They passed low level city hall employees in the halls, each one looking more shaken and nakedly frightened than the next. Wilkins offered cheerful smiles and warm hellos, but didn’t appear to notice their trepidation.

Wilkins sat behind his desk whistling a jaunty tune as he picked up the phone and dialed in a number. He stopped whistling when someone on the other end picked up.

“Detective Stein, how are you this lovely morning? Good, good! I’m sure you noticed the unusual craft over the harbor? Isn’t that—what do the young people say these days? Cool? Me, worried? No! I’m sure everything will be just fine. Still I do have one issue I’d like you to take care of. I want you to find Ethan Rayne and bring him to me. Oh, and Detective? If he isn’t in the best of health when you bring him in, well, you know—omelets!”

Wilkins told Detective Stein to have a nice day before he hung up. With a bright smile he looked over to Allen.

“Alrighty! What else do we have on the docket?”


	4. And Share the Wonders I've Seen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the beginning.

She didn’t want to go home. She wouldn’t feel safe there. She didn’t feel like she belonged anywhere anymore. 

She didn’t want to walk around the day after Halloween wearing a belly dancer costume, either, but where else could she change? The mall wouldn’t be open for another few hours, and she didn’t have enough money in her bra to buy anything decent anyway. Not that anyone seemed to care about what she wore. Everyone was too busy gaping at that stupid Borg cube. 

She hated she knew what a Borg even was. 

Like some big nerd. 

She started crying again, and no one she passed on the street noticed or cared. 

Being a Borg had been so awful. The most awful thing she ever went through. She hated it. Hated it.

She cried even harder.

She’d come so close to escaping assimilation too. She was only two blocks from home when she saw Cordelia slumming with Buffy and her friends, the school librarian, and a really hot college guy. The motley group was leisurely walking down the street like they weren’t scared of the Borg catching them. 

She should have ran over and joined them when she had the chance, but she believed she was better off on her own. She’d evaded capture for hours without anyone’s help. Besides, they were heading in the opposite direction of where she wanted to go. 

She was within twenty feet of her house when the Borg came marching out of the darkness. They were a horde, there was no other way to describe them. Borg filled the street and the sidewalks; they emerged from the surrounding houses, including her own. Many were newly assimilated, but a dozen or so were fully armored drones. 

She turned and ran, but it was too late. The Borg swarmed in, surrounding her as she screamed and pleaded until she was cut off from every possible route of escape. Tubules bit into her neck as dozens, hundreds, of drones swept passed her. She couldn’t tell which Borg infected her. Then she was left standing alone in the middle of the street as the horde moved on, and the nanoprobes did their work.

She remembered very little of what happened after her brain was fully assimilated, it was mostly hazy. 

But every moment before then, she recalled with crystal clarity. 

She couldn’t move. Her muscles still worked. She had feeling in them, but she could not make them move. The Collective commanded her to remain still, to not resist, and she didn’t. Couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried. 

She could not resist. She must not resist. It was futile to resist. Those were the last thoughts she had as an individual before her identity was absorbed into the Collective. 

Within ninety seconds no more commands needed to be given, because she no longer desired escape. Even as nanoprobes consumed her brain, and flowed through her veins, and seeped into her bones, she felt no grief or fear. She/they only wanted to attain the singular goal of all Borg: perfection. 

Assimilation was the path that led to perfection. 

Everything else was irrelevant.

After the initial assimilation process was completed she/they received/gave the command to rejoin the drone horde. The drone she/they had become commanded/obeyed. She/They were no longer singular, yet she/they weren’t just a cog in a vast machine: She/They were the machine. 

All her/their thoughts had been so large, too complex to remember or understand as a simple, singular being. The only exception was when other individuals were added to the Collective. She/They embraced each new addition, and knew them in a way only the Collective truly could. The sensation of the new left such a powerful impression that even as a singular being she remembered when Cordelia was assimilated, and then soon after, Buffy Summers. In the span of half a second she/they knew everything there was to know about the two girls. In that same instance, they knew all there was to know about her and the countless others assimilated before them. 

Then suddenly, she was back. Trapped in her small mind, alone in her useless, imperfect body, standing among others who had likewise been assimilated, ejected, and then abandoned. 

Alone.

So alone. 

That feeling of crushing loneliness is what tormented her most. The insurmountable greatness that was the Collective had been torn away from her. Reducing her to insignificance, making her so terribly small, smaller than Perfect Cordelia or Brilliant Willow Rosenberg, ever made her feel. 

She’d been hunted, overtaken, and transformed into a monster against her will, and all she wanted to do was go back to the thing that took her and beg it to embrace her once more. To make her a Titan again.

She cried for hours. She sobbed because she hated what the Borg did to her, she wailed because she desired only to rejoin their elegant majesty. She cried sitting on curbs, she cried as she stumble-walked on sidewalks, she cried standing in place. She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore. 

When her tears finally stopped she found herself standing in the middle of downtown Sunnydale, not far from the mall. The sky had taken on a beautiful orange and purple hue as dawn neared. Due to the early hour there was hardly anyone else around.

Not knowing what else to do, she decided to stand outside the mall and wait for it to open. As she slowly made her way there the earthquake hit, almost knocking her off her feet. She didn’t notice the cube at first, she was far too distraught. Desperate to get out of her costume and forget the past eight hours ever happened. After the quake stopped she resumed her journey to the mall. Staring more at the ground than at what was in front of her until she bumped into a someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Excuse you—”

The man she bumped into wore military fatigues. He was a tall, good-looking young man with short sandy blond hair. He looked really hot in his army costume.

She wondered if it was good sign she could still be attracted to boys after everything she’d been through. 

The man was looking up into the sky and she followed his gaze. Her breath caught. Her heart felt like it dropped like a stone into her belly. 

Home. Oblivion. Hell. Heaven. The cube represented all those things to her. She didn’t know if she wanted to run and hide, or raise her arms and beg the Borg to see her.

Instead, she cried.

When people began transforming into their Halloween costumes Riley thought he was hallucinating. He tried to call for back up and report what was happening in town, but there was no reply from home base, or the other agents on patrol. Equipped with a HT and an expandable Baton didn’t present Riley with a whole lot of options, so he prioritized getting back to base. 

There was so much chaos that maneuvering through town was easy, but slow going. The monsters were largely unfocused, attacking with no discernible goal or pattern. They mostly attacked each other, but when they did attack a civilian Riley quickly engaged. His interference gave the civilians enough time to escape to the safety of a building or a car. 

An hour later, Riley encountered fewer and fewer creatures as he made his way to UC Sunnydale. The number of unaltered residents he saw also declined until the streets were quiet and empty. 

Recognizing things had gone even more pear-shaped, Riley decided to abandon stealth and openly ran to the campus. He had a feeling whatever silenced the madness in Sunnydale would soon be coming for him. As it turned out, it didn’t come for him, he ran into it. 

“It” was a red-headed teenage girl wearing a burgundy top, a short, tight black mini-skirt, and wedge-heeled boots. The girl’s face was chalk-white. Riley thought she was a skimpily dressed ghost at first. But as he got closer Riley heard her boots impact the side walk.

_Not a ghost. Check._

The way she walked was odd: determined, predatory, but stiff. The way she put one foot in front of the other reminded Riley of a wind-up robot toy. 

Still she was the first human Riley encountered in almost almost half an hour. Riley had no reason to believe she was dangerous; she could just be wearing a normal Halloween costume. She might even need his help. 

Riley jogged toward her and tried to think of a way to convince a young girl walking alone at night that it was a good idea to follow a strange, semi-armed man back to campus. 

Riley was ten feet from the girl when he noticed the strange black ornament on the left side of her face, and the black veins webbed throughout her exposed skin. 

He was five feet away when he saw the silvery metallic glint in her eyes. 

He was two feet away when every instinct in his body screamed at him to STOP! 

Riley threw himself back just as the girl’s left arm shot out and her hand clutched at where his neck would have been. There was more ornamentation on her hand that looked like part of a glove. The girl tilted her head for a moment before she straightened and lurched forward. 

Riley realized instantly he had a decision to make: Fight or run? 

The girl blocked his path to campus, but her movements were slow. He could evade her easily, or take a different street. The only rational justification he had to fight was the girl looked a hell of a lot less dangerous than the previous creatures he’d run across. She could be his best and last chance to bring a specimen back to the Initiative. There they might find out what was happening to the rest of Sunnydale, and how to stop it. 

Riley telescoped his baton and waited for the robot-girl come to him. 

After Riley took his first swing things went FUBAR fast. When the baton struck the girl’s shoulder it sounded like he whacked a side of beef. She didn’t flinch. 

Riley aimed for her kneecaps. First the left one, then the other, and neither blow slowed her stride. Riley leaped back when she grabbed for him again. Riley swung two more quick, powerful blows at her kneecaps, his intent was to break them this time. The girl kept moving forward, seemingly unharmed. She didn’t even bruise.

Riley quickly reached the conclusion he needed to put the girl down for the count if he wanted to capture her, so with his next swing he went for her temple. The blow might kill her, but he felt like he had no other choice. 

The baton struck home. For a brief moment Riley thought he’d stunned the girl because she stopped moving. Then, faster than Riley could even blink, she snatched the baton out of his hand and tossed it away. 

When she reached out to grab him Riley ducked under her arm and tackled her, his shoulder slamming into her midsection. The girl couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, but it felt like he struck a brick wall. 

She grabbed the back of his flack vest’s collar and pulled. Riley tried to cling to her waist, but she was able to dislodge him and throw him to the ground. 

Riley rolled feet several feet away from the girl and into a crouched position. 

The girl was still slowly stalking forward, her cold, silvery-black eyes locked onto him.

_What the hell is this girl?_ Riley wondered. 

Was it a mistake to think she was something he could handle on his own? Maybe he should retreat?

Riley shook his head. He couldn’t give up. Not when the answers he needed might be right in front of him.

Whatever the girl was she was sluggish on her feet. There had to be a way to take advantage of that. Riley stood and, when she was close enough, he launched a roundhouse kick at her head. Her head whipped to the side then forward again. Riley followed his first kick with a kick to her midriff and it didn’t hinder her from taking a single mechanical step. Riley leaped backward, spun around, and used the momentum from his rotation to punch the girl in the face as hard as he could. 

“Gah!” Riley cried out in pain, jerking his hand back after almost breaking it on the girl’s head. 

The blow did knock her head back, but just as before her head straightened. Not a mark on her. Not even her hair was mussed. 

Riley fell back. 

He didn’t want to accept nothing he could do would faze her, but the evidence was mounting. 

_Should I run?_

He wasn’t tired and he hadn’t suffered any serious injuries fighting the girl—if he hightailed it she’d never catch him. 

_No. One more try, then I’m out of here_ , Riley decided. He’d go at her with everything he had. 

Riley expected her to take his blows like she’d done before, but when he threw three consecutive jabs at her face she dodged each one by tilting her head from side to side. His fists whipping past her cheeks and missing by millimeters. 

When he tried kicking out at her she effortlessly intercepted his kicks with one hand and blocked them. 

Every combination he attempted she evaded as though Riley was moving in slow motion. Riley used faster, but less powerful strikes, and she swept those aside with methodical ease as well. 

Riley pulled back his arm, preparing put everything he had into one last right hook. But before he finished pulling back his fist the girl’s hand shot forward and she was finally able to grab him by the neck. 

“ **RESISTANCE IS FUTILE**.” 

Her words sounded like an electronic chorus. 

And they sounded familiar... 

She lifted Riley up by his neck until his feet dangled above the sidewalk. He punched her in the face, smashed his elbows and knees together against her skinny arm, but nothing seemed to affect her. At least not enough to make her drop him. 

She raised her right arm and two metallic tendrils slithered out of her fore and middle fingers. Riley ineffectually kicked her in the stomach as the tendrils inched closer and closer. 

Then her eyes changed. 

They were still the same silvery-black metallic color, but Riley swore he saw them shift from lifeless and calculating, to bright, animated, and filled with unmistakable shock and surprise. 

She ‘eeked’ and suddenly let Riley drop out of her grip.

Riley rubbed his neck and stared up at the girl. It was hard to believe the emotions playing across the girl’s pale face were real. How could anyone’s face go from dead-eyed to adorably confused that fast? It was like a different person was standing in front of him.

When the girl didn’t make a move towards him, Riley, dizzy and lightheaded, unsteadily got to his feet. As he trotted back the way he came, the girl called out:

“Sorry!”

Riley shook his head.

How did he get his ass kicked by a girl who sounded that cute?

*********************************************************************

Riley ended up taking the long way round to UC Sunnydale. Along the way he realized the monsters were gone, but a lot of civilians suffering from clear cases of PTSD had taken their place. Most couldn’t bring themselves to speak, but the few that could told him they turned into their Halloween costumes. Riley wondered what the girl who made him feel like he was on the wrong end of a blanket party was dressed as?

Some told him they were assimilated into the Borg from Star Trek.

The Riley who began what was supposed to be a light patrol mission that night would have dismissed the stories as mass hallucination. But the Riley that ran around town fighting pirates and tiny red-skinned devils with pitch-forks had a much easier time believing their words.

The robot-girl did say something about resistance being futile, and Riley was familiar enough with Star Trek to know that was the Borg’s catchphrase.

_It should have been Forrest out here getting beat up by his fandom!_

Riley was in midtown when the sun started to rise. He’d spoken to dozens of witnesses before he decided to take what he learned back to base for people way smarter than him to untangle. He was debating rather or not to mention robot-girl in his report when the earthquake hit.

As an Iowan Riley didn’t know much about earthquakes, but the quake felt larger than any tremor he’d experienced since he was transferred to California.

Thirty seconds later Riley saw an impossible black cube rise impossibly into the sky.

“Excuse you—”

Riley glanced away from the cube and saw a young woman dressed in a belly dancer costume standing behind him staring up at the cube with tears and longing in her eyes.

Within one second of coming into awareness, it knew it possessed no designation. It received no signal from the Collective. It was alone.

Within two seconds it processed the totality of Alexander Lavelle Harris’s memories. It understood Borg were fictional creations. That it only existed through the power of magical energy. 

Within three seconds it recognized it was surrounded by Species 5618. From there it surmised it likely was on Species 5618’s home world, Earth. It noticed the ‘humans’ were transmogrifying into many different, unidentifiable species. Without being commanded by the Collective, it decided on its own to assimilate several of the transformed humans to learn about the phenomenon.

Within four seconds it assimilated a small transformed human attempting to stab it with a bladed weapon.

Within six seconds it had formed a connection to the new drone.

Within seven seconds it made the most unexpected and miraculous discovery: The magic that had transformed the human child was powered by Particle 10.

Within eight seconds it and drone 2 of 2 decided the Borg must continue at all cost.

Within ten seconds two drones had become four.

Within twelve seconds four drones became eight, and a Collective was created.


End file.
